In a post on social media, Rama alleged that around 10,000 accounts had been created to orchestrate attacks on the online reputations of hotels, guesthouses and restaurants by posting manipulated ratings.

He accused participants in the “flamingo protest” of carrying out the campaign, claiming it had artificially stripped businesses of positive customer ratings accumulated over time.

Rama said police were investigating the alleged scheme to identify those responsible, while cooperation with Google had enabled affected businesses to recover their ratings.

“Police are continuing to investigate the criminal scheme, while with Google’s assistance the affected businesses are having their deserved star ratings restored,” Rama said.

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PM Rama defended Albania’s use of an AI minister to fight corruption.

Rama argued that he is disappointed with Schmidt’s opinion highlighting that, “Albania is the first country to take a real step towards ‘algocracy’: governance by algorithm”.

The head of the government wrote in subsequent Times articles that Diella is neither a ruler, nor a substitute for democracy, but “a public guardian conceived to make democracy function better and public services faster, fairer and more transparent.”

“I hold Mr. Schmidt in high estimation. His leadership at Google and his ideas about the relationship between technology and society have inspired a generation of policymakers, including me. But, in the quality of Albania’s prime minister, I was disappointed to read his description of Diella, Albania’s A.I. governance initiative, as “a step toward ‘algocracy’: governance by algorithms.”

Diella is neither a ruler nor a substitute for democracy. It is a digital civil servant, a public watchdog designed to make democracy work better and public services faster, fairer, and more transparent.

For decades, Albania, like many new democracies, has struggled against corruption in public procurement. When the rules are broken, it is not the algorithms that fail, but the people.

Diella is built to enforce existing laws and procedures impartially and without political influence. The values ​​it upholds — fairness, transparency, efficiency — are not mathematical abstractions; they are democratic principles, codified and fully auditable.

With Diella, every decision is traceable, reasonable and open to appeal. This is not “governance by algorithm”. It is governance by law, enforced by technology, under the watchful eye of the citizens.

Albania’s goal is not to hand power over to machines, but to free people from inefficiency and temptation. We are not building an algocracy in Albania. We are building a digital democracy,” Rama stated in his article for “The New York Times”. /TCH/p.s./

The tourist Albania of recent years has been a surprise for foreigners discovering a destination with many natural beauties, but also having a taste of the development of road infrastructure.

Starting from 2025, it will be easier for those who choose to visit our country, because now data on intercity public transport has been integrated into Google Maps, making orientation easier.

This means that to go from one city to another, you just need to search in Google Maps and the itinerary is automatically generated, in some cases with more than one option, depending on the destination you want to go to and the route you want to choose.

“The data that is currently on the Google Maps has as its source several operators, from e-Transport, which is the official website of intercity public transport in the country, the Municipality of Tirana regarding public transport in the capital, as well as private entities that have data platforms on transport,” wrote the “Monitor” magazine.

For example, if you want to go from Tirana to Korça, the map specifies the nearest urban bus to reach the center of the capital from where you then take the urban bus that leads you to the “Southeastern Terminal”. There you take the bus that takes you to Korça, which departs every 60 minutes, in this case.

Albania, with its growing interest as a tourist destination, has had to coordinate public transport on Google Maps, given that the options it offers are limited, focusing only at buses since functional railway lines are missing. /r.e//a.f/p.s./